COLONIAL NEWS.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 6850, 7 September 1887, Page 3

COLONIAL NEWS.

IMPOSING RELIGIOUS CEREMONY AT WELLINGTON.

WELLINGTON, August 28. ; Tb-- ceremony of investing the newlyi created Komaii Catholic Archbishop of Wellington with the pallium took place in ! the Wellington Cathedral this morning, and created unusual interest among persons of all denominations. Long before eleven o'clock every seat in the church and all available standing room was occupied. The church was tastefully dacorated with flowers. Bishop Luck, of Auckland, and the priests representing nearly all parts of the colony, were present. Before proceeding to describe the ceremony, the first of its kind in New Zealand, it may not be out of place to cast a retrospective glance over the early career of the Marist fathers in New Zealand, whose work has received in the most marked manner in the ceremony of Sunday morning, the seal of Kapal approval. The Marist order was founded at the beginning of the century for the purpose of evangelising New Zealand and the South Sea Islands, including

Wallis, Tonga, &c. Its founder wan Father Colin, a priest of the Diocese of Lyons, in France. The Order _ received encouragement from Leo VII., and was formally approved of by Gregory XVI. in 183t». This missionary So- ! ciety, which has spread with remarkable I rapfdity, has at the present time tlourUh--1 ing establishments all over Europe and ' throughout Australia and the various ! islands which stud the great Pacific. The Catholic mission in New Zealand was inaugurated by Bishop Pompellier who, after a long and eventful voyage which would furnish materials for a stary as strange as one of Jules Verne's, arrived at Hokianga on the 10th January, 1*37. He was accompanied in his wanderings by a small band of followers, oaiy r.Cvo of whom — Father Sehvyn aud Brother Joseph—survived the dangers which had beset them after they had quitted their native laud. These two, Father Selwyn and Brother Joseph, were the first Marists in New Zealand. Bishop Pompellier did not belong to that order. The services of the Roman Catholic

Church were first celebrated in New Zealand by Bishop Pompellier iii a settler's hut in Hokianga in 1839. The Bishop was joined in his missionary labors by five Marist priests, Fathers Petitjean, Viard, Chevenon, Comte and another. In 184 ( J Bishop Pompellier visited Wellington and Akaroa. At the latter settlement he had already established a Missionary station, consisting of two fathers and one brother. On that visit to Wellington, in 1810, Bishop Pompellier celebrated the religious office of his Church ; but in what building, or upon what site the building stood, in which that first Mass was said in Wellington, it is now extremely difficult to discover. Somewhere " on the Beach " is the nearest description that can be given, but " on the Beach "' in Wellington at that time, is a wide term. It might mean anywhere almost from the road to Te Aro. It has been said that it was in a Maori house on what was then named Thorndon Hat, not far away from the site of the Girls' High School, that Bishop Pompellier and his very small band of coreligionists first met for worship in Wellington. This for many reasons is probably near the truth, as near at all events as any one is likely to get now; the events of that early time are lost in the haze of uncertainty and mystery, and those only who could dispel that haze have long been numbered with the dead. It is such a pity now, and it always will prove an insurmountable obstacle to the successful work of the historian, that the early settlers kept such scant records of what was around them. Probably they never dreamed that events which seemed trivial to them would be most interesting history to those who would come upon the same but strangely altered scenes half a century later.

In 1843 the first Catholic missionary station in Wellington was established by Father O'Reily, a Franciscan, at Te Aro, upon the spot where the Boulcott street Church no v stands. Te Aro then was a wild flax grown swamp. In 1830 Bishop Viard, who had been consecrated at Sydney about ten years before, came to Wellington, accompanied by five priests, among whom was Father Petitjean, and ten brothers. They took up their abode in a brick building, which had been abandoned through fear of the re-

currence of the earthquakes of a short period before. On the Bth September, 1830, the foundation stone of the St. Mary's Cathedral in Hill street was laid. In the following year it was opened. Shortly after this Bishop Viard established schools for boys and girls and a school for the instruction of Maori and half-caste children. Thus the mission of the Marist order in the diocsse of Wel-

lington was fairly started upon what has been a most prosperous career. It may be mentioned that the site for a school for children of the Native race was granted to the Catholics by Sir George Grey, the then Governor, who after supplemented the grant of land by pecuniary aid.

The above briefly outlines the outward history of the foundation of the Marists in New Zealand. But there is an unwritten history of the gentle works and kindly deeds of those meek, and patient, and earnest early French missions which exist in undying mernorv in many a heart and home in New Zealand. Yet the eyes of old people who were settlers in Wellington in the days when Maori canoes were moored in the bay, and bush fires burned in Thorndon, will still fill with tears at the mention of the names of Bishop Viard, Fathers Petitjean and O'Reilly. "They were good, they were good; I could only weep when I think of them," were the words of an old lady in Thorndon who knewthe French missions nearlyforty years ago. That in effect is the sentiment of everyone who was associated with the early Marists. They have left this same kind of memory here as Father Moreau left in Otago. People remember their hard self-denying lives, their scanty fare, their long walks over rough tracks through a wild, unsettled country, and they give to the memories of the early Marists that love and respect, which even in a hard world, the spectacle of self-denial and self-sacrifice, no matter what may be the creed of the man who practices them, be they Buddhist or Christians, never fails to win.

The death of Bishop Viard, the succession of Bishop Redwood, and the latter work of the Marist Order in Wellington, such as the establishment of St. Patrick's College, are circumstances of comparatively recent occurrence, and do not require to be particularised here.

Looking at all that has been done in New Zealand, and in this diocese, by the Marist Order, there are few who will not admit that the bestowal of the pallium on Bishop Redwood is an honor well won, and hardly earned by fifty years' laborious work in the colony on the part of the Order of which he is so distinguished a member. At eleven o'clock, as the choxr sang the "Asperges," the procession entered the church and proceeded up the middle aisle to the sanctuary. The procession consisted of a jrreat many acolytes, i about twenty priests and Archbishop Redwood and Bishop Luck, of Auckland. ] Archbishop Redwood was robed in the reddish purple silken garments and purple biretta which Bishops usually wear. Dr. I Luck wore a black robe, black cope, and small cap of a deep violet color. Archbishop Redwood took his seat upon his throne, which had been festooned with flowers.'and opposite to him was Bishop Luck, with two priests in the black dress and hood of the Benedictines. Pontifical high mass, which usually precedes great ceremonies in the Catholic Church, then began. Father MeNamara, V.G., was celebrant, assisted by two priests. At the conclusion of the mass Bishop Luck took his seat before the altar, and was vested by the priests in his official robes. . At the same time Archbishop Kedwooa assumed the mitre and crozier and his vestments. At this moment the scene witnm the sanctuary was most brilliant and impressing. Arnonethe assembled priests there were many types of the Caucasian raceFrench, German. Irish and English. There was the j>eal of the music and the perfume of incense, the glitter of the magnificent colden robe*, rich with Oriental embroidery, of the bishops, gleams of exquisite lace upon surplices, and the varied colors of the floral decorations* upon the After the robins of the Bishop, Dr. Wattcrs. of Si. Patrick a College, entered the pulpit. After announcing the ceremonies for the evening, he read a telegram from Bishop Moran. of Dunedin, stating that it was not possible for him to be present at the ceremony. Bishop Moran, as senior Bishop in New Zealand, had been invited to perform the ceremony of investing Archbishop Redwood with the pallium. In his absence, the ceremony had to be performed by Bishop Luck. Many persons, no doubt, felt disappointed at missing the genial face of the Bishop of Daiioilin from among , the group.

Up within the sanctuary Dr. Watter* next read, first in Latin and then in Jinghsb, two briefs from the Pope, signed oy Cardinal Ledochowski. The first announced the erection in Australasia of three new- Archbishoprics of Provincesone in Brisbane, one in Adelaide, and the other in New Zealand. These Archbishoprics had been instituted upon the recommendation of the Council which met »n Sydney a couple of years ago. The second brief conferred upon Dr. Kedwood the title of Archbishop, and created the JJiocsse of Wellington the metropolitan see in New Zealand. There was no sermon. After the reading of the official documents, Archbishop Redwood advanced to the altar, and kneeling before the Bishop or Auckland, pronounced in Latin the oath of allegiance and fidelity to the i*ope. The pallium was then taken from the altar and placed round the neck of the Archbishop by the Bishop of Auckland, and the ceremony of the investiture of the Pallium, the most important in the history of the Marists in New Zealand, was over. Archbishop Redwood pronounced the -Benediction, and all the clergy then left the sanctuary. The pallium is a kind of round collar, worn over the shoulders. One end hangs down in front, and the other end down the a f.'s' tv ? enti! * are tipped with black. The pallium is made of white cloth, woven from pure lambs wool. Worked upon it there are six black crosses in each of the ends, and one on the right and one on the left shoulder. It is about two inches wide. All the palliums used in the Church are made in Rome, ami are blessed upon the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. The pallium is to the Archbishop the insignia of power, as the mitre aud crozier are to the bls «op and the stole to the priest. Au archbishop cannot, except under great necessity, perform the functions of his office until he has been invested with the pallium. Archbishop Redwood is, as everyone probably knows, an Englishman, He possesses a clear cut, refined intellectual face. His brow is broad, smooth, and white. His

eyes are clear, and their glance is search ing and steady. His mouth is tirni and kind. The leading expression of his face is of extreme amiability and extreme calmness. He, as many Marists do, wears his beard. His bearing when taking part in the religious ceremonials of his church is characterised by meekness and rapt devotion. He has the appearance of a man who leads a studious life, and from whom study has stolen at least robust strength. His manner in the pulpit is most graceful, because it is wholly unstudied. He does not indulge in ornate nights of oratory. He appears to think more of making the subject upon which he preaches clear to the minds of his hearers than he does of line similes and striking metaphors. The doctrine of transubstantiation appears to be with him a favorite theme. When explaining that or any other doctrine of his church, his language is always plain and simple, his argument clear, concise, to the point and vigorous, shorn of anything approaching verbosity. His voice is strong and well modulated. He is an ecclesiastic eminently of the intellectual contemplating school of Cardinal Newman. He is one whom one would scarcely be surprised to find the author of a second " Grammar of Assent."

bishop Luck of Auckland is an Englishman too, and a Benedictine. He appears to be about forty-five years of age. His head is small, his hair smooth and slightly tinged with grey. His thin studious face is very palo, so pale as to suggest delicacy. His beard is long and black. His large blue-grey eyes have that thoughtful look habitual to persons whose thoughts are upon another world. When seated within the sanctuary his attitude is one of entire repose. His face never flushes with the sign of emotion, and his manner is that of on» for whom the world and its honors have little charms. The musical arrangements for the occasion were all that could be desired. The choir was reinforced by contingents from the Catholic Church choirs of Wanganui and Napier. The Mass which was sung was Haydn's Imperial No. 3. Altogether the musical arrangements were very satisfactory. There was a good deal of vacant space in the choir, which might have been utilised when the church was so overcrowded. When the doors opened at about a quarter to eleven there was a regular rush for seats. A few persons had got in before the doors opened; but how goodness knows, unless they dropped through the roof. Lady Vogel, Miss Vogel, the Count d'Abbans, and many others who constitute the upper ten in Wellington were in the church.

At vespers the sermon was preached by Father Sullivan, of Auckland.